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The Chicken Doctor

The Architect

Bonks and Beets

I like to mow. I do. I like to ride around on the mower pretending I’m on a big tractor putting up hay. Farmer April, that’s me.

Problem is, most farmers don’t have apple trees in the middle of their fields. I forgot about the trees and my big floppy hat hid the giant limbs from my view.

So I ran smack into a limb and then found myself wedged between an apple branch and my riding lawn mower. I thought someone had hit me with a baseball bat. What’s a farmer to do?

I whimpered. Owwww, owwww, owwww, owww, oh oww. And then I pleaded for help, Clay?Clay? Cuhlay? And then I just decided, what the hell, I’m gonna cry. Boo hoo hooohooooo. Booo hoo hoo oh owww boo hoo. Nobody came to my rescue. Nobody. I had to perform a very difficult yoga move to get off the mower and out from under the branch and then walk to the house hoping my neck hadn’t been broken or my head cracked in two.

By the time I got to the house I decided I was going to live and my head started to numb.

The next day I had one heck of a sore head and I needed to treat myself to something nice.

Do you want to come along and join the beet salad pity party? Yes? Okay then.

First get out one plate. Remember this is just for you. Nobody helped rescue you, nobody deserves a treat except you.

Next, pile up some fresh greens and cucumbers from your garden on that single plate.

This is a bowl of fragrant rice. It’s been cooked with fresh Rosemary from your garden, it smells divine, but it looks like maggots. Try not to think about maggots.

Pile maggots on top of greens.

Now this, this is the ticket to your happiness. This is a bowl of beets marinated in sweet onions and olive oil, honey, red wine vinegar and salt. You want to inject this into your veins or bathe in it or take it to bed and snuggle with it until your head stops hurting, but then you remember you don’t like to feel oily.Put the lovely marinated beets on top of the maggots and greens. Mmmm, isn’t that pretty?Now, show the world your boo-boo and your greasy hair and the zit beside your nose. Yes, you deserve this salad. It is the healing balm for all your problems…..except the greasy hair, please go take a shower woman.

Oh, sweet delight. Nectar for your soul. Lifter of good.

Yes, you are happy, blissful, all the pain has dissipated. You are free and floating in the Sea of Marinated Beets.

I do like beets, but that is not the kind of treat I go for when I whack my noggin. (It happens fairly often. Other body parts are not safe either.) I prefer a Mississippi Mud ice cream sandwich or some Edy’s rocky road ice cream. Mmmmm, all better. Perhaps this is the reason I need to use a push mower instead of a riding mower. It helps work off the ice cream.

OK this made me laugh on many levels. First though there is nothing better than fresh garden grown beets. Yummy! But I couldn’t bring myself to now eat the rice because all I see is bloody maggots.

Second is that I once ran my dad’s real life tractor into an apple tree head on while craning my neck half way around my body to watch the hay on the wagon. My excuse was that I was about 10 years old.

Third is that just last summer I was riding on our mower and got too close to the edge where it drops off into the ditch and I tipped over and fell off. No one came to rescue me either.

Am I the only one who remembers what you last used with the honey? Gag, choke, cough. Ok, I’m better now. I love beets but I’d have to say that I would have gone for the chocolate after the head injury.